FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DISTRICT COURT - PAGE 4

Thirty-one lawyers, including a former judge and former Republican committee chairman for the county, are seeking 10-year appointments to two positions on the District Court bench. At least seven candidates are current or former prosecutors, at least two were unsuccessful Republican candidates for local office and one is a federal EPA lawyer. Several are past applicants for judgeships. David S. Bruce, a former District Court judge appointed to Circuit Court, lost a race in November to retain his position on the Circuit Court.

In her shared office in the Howard County District Court building, Kimberly A. Vasco is ready for action. She has a jar of Jolly Ranchers on her desk and coloring books, crayons and bubbles in her desk drawer. She's put together informational brochures and introductory letters. She is also accumulating cases - 40 at last count - to take on, beginning next month, in the often-hectic, often-packed criminal courtrooms of District Court in Ellicott City. As the newest victim/witness advocate in Howard County, Vasco also is taking on that program's newest role, thanks to a state grant.

The Howard County state's attorney's office chooses not to prosecute a higher percentage of criminal cases brought in District Court than do its counterparts in other Baltimore suburban counties, according to state statistics.The high rate of untried cases in Howard -- 56 percent compared with a 39 percent average for the other suburban counties -- appears to contrast with the tough-on-crime campaign pledge of Howard County State's Attorney Marna McLendon.She criticized the "poor performance" of her predecessor in Howard, William R. Hymes, on the grounds of dropping too many District Court cases.

While state officials have decided to look elsewhere for a site for their new District Court building, county officials are still considering the Elks Club property on Rowe Boulevard for a Circuit Court facility.The 6.9-acre property had been eyed as home for both District Court and Circuit Court buildings, but officials decided at a meeting last week that it would be too small to accommodate both."The problem is the parking situation. If you put both buildings there, there would be absolutely no room for parking," said Jerome W. Klasmeier, director of the county Central Services Department.

The scenario was fairly typical: A young woman, her car missing, approaches a District Court commissioner to file criminal charges. As a video crew recorded every movement on a recent morning, the actors, both court employees, followed the process from the application to the information to the swearing to the truth. Similar scenes would play out in various offices in Prince George's County's Upper Marlboro court building throughout the day as videographers moved from commissioner to cashier to clerk to courtroom, filming scenes that will be condensed into a five-minute explanatory video.

Carroll County's new multimillion-dollar District Courthouse appears to be back on track for design and construction money in state budgets for 2000 and 2001, county officials said yesterday.In December, officials discovered what they described as a glitch in the project: Construction money that was supposed to have been in the state's next fiscal budget was omitted from a preliminary draft.But Steven D. Powell, county director of management and budget, said the project is expected to receive $7.6 million in construction funding in 2001, and $63,000 for design in the 2000 budget.

NEIL EDWARD AXEL'S appointment to Howard County's District Court remedies the immediate concern of making sure that an important level of the local judiciary will function at better than half-strength. Mr. Axel, a well-regarded Columbia solo practitioner, is expected to assume his seat within a month, becoming the third judge on a bench with four seats.Before Gov. Parris N. Glendening appointed the new judge last Friday, responsibility for all the county's low-level criminal cases, small civil matters and traffic cases fell to Judges James Vaughan and Louis Becker.

Edward S. Northrop, retired chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Maryland and a former state senator, died in his sleep Tuesday of undetermined causes at Brook Grove Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Olney. He was 92. Born in Chevy Chase, Judge Northrop was known as both pragmatic and comical, and was well-liked in the Baltimore courthouse for his affable and personable manner. He held the distinction of being the first Democrat - and first attorney outside of Baltimore - to serve on the federal bench in Maryland since before the Civil War, when President John F. Kennedy appointed him in 1961.

Two more African-Americans than previously reported have applied for a vacancy on the Howard County District Court bench -- boosting the number of black candidates to four of nine.The state's Administrative Office of the Courts reported last week that seven attorneys had advanced their names for the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Lenore R. Gelfman to Circuit Court.But yesterday, Michael O'Malley, assistant state court administrator, said two other applications "were inadvertently placed in the wrong location."

Veteran prosecutor Sue-Ellen Hantman was sworn in as Howard County's fifth District Court judge yesterday during a ceremony filled with tributes to a woman whom speakers hailed as a worker bee who has long been committed to community building - and who never gave up on her dream of becoming a judge. Thirteen years after she first applied for a District Court judgeship, Hantman, 57, was tapped last month - as one of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's last three judicial appointees - to fill the vacancy created by the death of Judge C. James "Kit" Sfekas in June.